Search

OLD AND NEW EDINEURGH. [South Bridge.
. . .~ 374
in 1765, and two ancient thoroughfares, the Wynds
of Marlin and Peebles, with the east side of
Niddry?s Wynd.
In Queen Mary?s time the corn-market was removed
from the corner of Marlin?s Wynd to the
, east end of the Grass-market, where it continued to
? be held till the present century. This wynd led
to the poultry-market, and ran south from the
back of the Tron church to the Cowgate, and at the
time of its demolition contained many book shops
and stalls, the favourite lounge of all collectors of
rare volumes, and had connected with it a curious
legend, recorded by Maitland?s History in 1753.
John Marlin, a Frenchman, is said to have been
the first who was employed to pave or causeway
the High Street, and was so vain of his work that,
as a monument to bis memory, he requested to be
buried under it,? and he was accordingly buried at
the head of the wynd, which from that time took
his name. The tradition was further supplemented
by the fact that till the demolition of the wynd, a
space in the pavement at that spot was always
marked by six flat stones in the form of a grave.
?? According to more authentic information,? says
Chambers, ?the High Street was first paved in
1532, by John and Bartoulme Foliot, who appear
to have had nothing in common with this legendary
Marlin, except country. The grave of at least
Bartoulme Foliot is distinctly marked by a flat
monument in the chapel royal at Holyrood.?
The pavior?s name is perhaps not quite ? legendary?
after all, as in the accounts of the Lord High
Treasurer we have a sum stated as being paid to
John Merlyoune,? in 1542, for building a Register
House in the Castle of Edinburgh.
The father of Sir William Stirling, Eart., who
was Lord Provost of the city in 1792, and who
had the merit of being the architect of his own
fortunes, was a fishmonger at the head of the
wynd, where his sign, a large clumsy wooden
black bull, now preserved as a relic in the Museum
of Antiquities, was long a conspicuous object as it
projected over the narrow way.
, It was at the head of Peebles Wynd, the adjoining
thoroughfare, in 1598, that Robert Cathcart,
who ten years before had been with Eothwell,
when tlie latter slew Sir William Stewart in Blackfriars
Wynd, was slain by the son of the latter,
according to Birrel.
During the demolitions for the projected bridge
an ancient seal of block-tin was found, of which
an engraving is given in the GenfZeman?s Mugaazine
for 1788, which says: ? I t is supposed to
.be the arms of Arnof and is a specimen of the
,seals used for writings, imprkions of which were
directed to be given to the sheriffs? clerks of the
different counties in Scotland in the time of Queen
blary.?
In digging the foundation of the central pier,
which was no less than twenty-two feet deep, many
coins of the three first English Edwards were found.
The old buildings, which were removed to make
room for this public work, were, according to Stark,
purchased at a trifling cost, their value being fixed
by the verdict of juries, while the areas on which they
stood were sold by the city for the erection of new
buildings on each side of the bridge for A30,ooo.
?It has been remarked,? he adds, ? that on this
occasion the ground sold higher in Edinburgh than
perhaps ever was known in any city, even in Rome,
during its most flourishing times. Some of the
areas sold at the rate of A96,ooo per statute acre ;
others at AIO~,OOO per ditto; and some even so
high as ~150,000 per acre.?
The foundation stone of the bridge was laid on
the 1st of August, 1785, by George Lord Haddo,
Grand Master Mason of Scotland, attended by the
brethren of all the lodges in town, and the magistrates
and council in their robes, who walked in
procession from the Parliament House, escorted
by the soldiers of the City Guard-those grim old
warriors, who, says Imd Cockburn, ? had muskets
and bayonets, but rarely used them.?
The bridge was carried on with uncommon dispatch,
and was open for foot-passengers on the 19th
of November, 1786, but only partially, for the author
above quoted mentions that when he first went to
the old High School, in 1787, he crossed the arches
upon planks. In the following year it was open for
carriages. It consists of nineteen arches. That
over the Cowgate is thirty-one feet high by thirty
wide; the others, namely, seven on the south and
eleven on the north, are concealed by the buildings
erected and forming it into a street. From the
plan and section published by the magistrates at
the time, it would appear that the descent from
Nicolscrn Street is one foot in twenty-two to the
south pier of the Cowgate arch ; and from thence
on the north, the ascent to the High Street is one foot
in twenty-eight. From the latter to the southern
end, where the town wall stood, extends South
Bridge Street, ?in length 1,075 feet by fifty-five
wide,? says, Kincaid, ? including the pavement on
each side.?
The drst house built here was that numbered
as I, forming the corner building at the junction
with the High Street. It was erected by Mr.
James Cooper, a jeweller, who resided in the upper
flat, and died in ISIS.
Except at the central arch, which spans the